A Commentary on the Passing Scene by
Robert Paul Wolff
rwolff@afroam.umass.edu

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The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for "Robert Paul Wolff Kant." There they will be.

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Thursday, July 21, 2016

FYI

For those of you still flirting with the fantasy that Donald Trump might turn out, miraculously, to be a better president than Hillary Clinton, and also for those of you simply interested in a deeper insight into Trump's character, I recommend this interview with the person who actually wrote The Art of the Deal. It is not surprising, but it is chilling. He must not be allowed to become president. You can vote for the Green Party or the Libertarian Party next time around.

9 comments:

"He must not be allowed to become president. You can vote for the Green Party or the Libertarian Party next time around."

Didn't I read this in 2012, and 2008 too? As the spectrum shifted ever righter, and the republicans and democrats got ever nastier...

What I got from the article is that Trump is an illiterate, raving narcissist, bellicose, pathological liar (who believes his own lies), kicks downwards and climbs upwards, and can't stay focused on a topic. Other than illiterate, and lack of focus, I'm not seeing qualitative differences between him and Clinton in character.

And if you want a factually documented article that depicts Clinton as on part with Trump (sans illiteracy and lack of focus), read here:

While I supported Bernie, I wouldn’t classify Hillary as a villain. But assuming she is, the choice is which villain is worse.

In 1968, many said that there was no difference between Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon. They were wrong—in addition to such “minor” things as their position on civil rights— there was William Rhenquist. Nixon put him on the Supreme Court; Humphrey never would have done so. Thirty two years later, Chief Justice Rhenquist was part of the five-member Court majority that elected George W. Bush.

Ah, but people say there was no difference between Bush and Gore. Wrong again. Gore never would have appointed John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Court. His appointments certainly would have been comparable to those of Clinton (Breyer and Ginsburg) and Obama (Sotomayor and Kagan). And there would have been no war in Iraq, with all of its consequences.

It is the Court that effectively decide issues like abortion, gun control, Congressional redistricting, It matters greatly who names its members. They will be named, in the foreseeable future, by presidents who are either Democrats or Republicans, not by presidents who are Libertarian or from the Green Party.

A Clinton administration is unlikely to be all that I would like it to be. But it will not be a catastrophe. A Trump administration would be exactly that.

The argument is not that one is not really worse, i.e., we recognize Trump is worse than Clinton, the argument is that - as you've now shown - the Democrats have captured the left by just saying "well we aren't as bad as X", and within 4 to 8 to 12 years they are as bad as X, but then Y comes along and is all the worse. 8-12 years from we'll have someone worse than Trump running for the Republican party, and a Dem nearly Trump bad saying "no but really I'm not as bad, you're captured, vote me". Something has to give.

That aside, it's telling that 3rd party voters are morally responsible for the crimes of republicans, but democratic voters aren't responsible for the crimes of Democrats.... How convenient!

Maybe I'm too optimistic, but I really feel like Trump would get impeached fairly early into office for doing something so flagrantly illegal, even a Clinton couldn't get away with it. Moreover, the Democrats would be more than happy to impeach him, as would the Republicans who want to restore their party to dog whistle values.

"Wouldn't be a catastrophe" for whom? How many millions of people's life have been made catastrophes in Libya, Haiti, Honduras, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Egypt, Palistine and all the others places by the Secretary and friends?

I totally agree, we must work to defeat Trump and yes, small differences in an 18 trillion dollar economy make huge differences in the lives of hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions. But to pretend that the Democrats are significantly more trustworthy is a bridge too far. Vietnam, steeped in decades long bipartisanship, was a moral transgression equal to many of the 20th century worst's. And we were to tick off the top ten or 20, liberal Democrats played leading roles, necessarily. One leading role that, to me, was reprehensible and unforgetable was Joe Biden's role in protecting Clarence Thomas from further exposure by the women he harassed (and so Thomas squeaked by 52-48). So yes, Republican presidents nominate awful people for the highest court in the land and are generally voted in by both parties, even protected, in some cases, by leading liberal Democrats. It's structural is it not? Is anyone surprised that US terrorism or subordination of various classes is always bipartisan?

About Me

As I observed in one of my books, in politics I am an anarchist, in religion I am an atheist, and in economics I am a Marxist. I am also, rather more importantly, a husband, a father, a grandfather, and a violist.